Gimbel owns approximately 2,650 volumes of Special Collections books and approximately 570 volumes of Special Collections periodicals. The collection contains artist books, photography 1st editions, historical costume materials with hand drawn illustrations, classical architecture books, publications and past projects of Parsons students, catalogue raisonnés, back issues of rare periodicals and many other rare and valuable publications. These materials are often aged or fragile and require special handling and care.

Special Collections materials are available by appointment only to individuals with current, valid New School or Consortium ID. If you are not a New School faculty/students/alumni or Consortium Affiliate, you will need to obtain a METRO referral card from your home institution. To view our Special Collections holdings, search our online catalog, BobCat.

Special Collections may be used during regular Reference Desk hours: Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.  Appointments to use Special Collections must be made at least 24 hours in advance through the Schedule a One-on-One Reference Appointment form on the library website (include the title and call number of books and the title and issue of periodicals in the “Your Research Topic” field of the form). A Librarian will contact you to set up your appointment.  

No Special Collections material is available on a same-day basis. The duration of appointments is limited to two hours and the number of appointments available may be limited. For this reason, we recommend that appointments be scheduled as far in advance as possible, and ask that specific times and dates of appointments be observed. If you need to cancel or postpone an appointment, contact the librarian with whom you set up your appointment as soon as possible.

Prior to using Special Collections, you will be required to review the Special Collections Guidelines and complete the Special Collections Agreement provided by the Librarian at the Reference Desk.  The Librarian will retrieve the requested item and you will have two hours, or until the Reference Desk closes, for use.  Special Collections materials that consist of multiple parts will be inventoried before check-out. Only one item may be checked out at a time. Materials that consist of multiple parts will be inventoried again before they are checked back in.

Any scanning or photocopying must first be approved by a Librarian. You will be asked to show which pages you wish to copy or scan and the item will be inspected after you finish. If the Reference Librarian determines that scanning or photocopying would endanger the materials, you will be permitted to only read, take notes from and photograph (no flash) the material.